The model for The Great Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim and Nathan Detroit from Guys and Dolls, Arnold Rothstein was an underworld genius, racketeer, rumrunner, and mastermind who, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, played "with the faith of 15 million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe."

The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York

Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this book, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime. Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s.

When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down

This is the story of a Mob lawyer turned mole with a million-dollar contract on his head, a man who has clanged back and forth between sin and sainthood like a church bell clapper - a turbulent youth, a stint on Chicago's police force, law school, and then the inner sanctum of Chicago's leading mobsters and corrupt political officials. With wild abandon he chased crooked acquittals for the likes of Pat Marcy, an Al Capone protégé, who had become the Mob's key political operative.

Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.

Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich

Swansong 1945 chronicles the end of Nazi Germany and World War II in Europe through hundreds of letters, diaries, and autobiographical accounts covering four days that fateful spring: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8.

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.

Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia

The notorious Gotti family is the stuff of mob legend. The "Dapper Don", John Gotti Sr., and his son John A. "Junior" Gotti ran New York's powerful Gambino crime family and were well known for their flamboyant style and brutal ways, an image perpetuated in popular Mafia mythology. John Alite, a mob hit man, associate, and close friend of the Gottis, has a very different story to tell.

A Deadly Secret: The Bizarre and Chilling Story of Robert Durst

Based on interviews with family, friends, and acquaintances of Durst, law enforcement, and others involved in the case, A Deadly Secret is a cross-country odyssey of stolen IDs and multiple identities that raises baffling questions about one of the country's most prominent families - and one of its most elusive suspected killers.

Vegas and the Mob

Las Vegas was the Mob's greatest venture and most spectacular success, and through 40 years of frenzy, murder, deceit, scams, and skimming, the FBI listened on phone taps and did virtually nothing to stop the fun. This is the truth about the Mob's control of the casinos in Vegas like you've never heard it before, from start to finish.

The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East

In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict.

Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything

Born in a log cabin in the Ozarks, Alvin "Titanic" Thompson (1892-1974) traveled with his golf clubs, a .45 revolver, and a suitcase full of cash. He won and lost millions playing cards, dice, golf, pool, and dangerous games of his own invention. He killed five men and married five women, each one a teenager on her wedding day. He ruled New York's underground craps games in the 1920s and was Damon Runyon's model for slick-talking Sky Masterson.

ZeroZeroZero

From the author of the number-one international best seller Gomorrah comes an electrifying investigation of the international cocaine trade, as vicious as it is powerful, and its hidden role in the global economy.

Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Story Behind the Suspicions Robert Durst Murdered Susan Berman & The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman

Susan Berman grew up in Las Vegas luxury as the daughter of Davie Berman, casino mogul and notorious mafia leader. After her father died she learned about his mob connections. Susan then dedicated her life to learning about Vegas and its underworld chiefs. Her life took a bizarre turn in l982 when Kathie Durst - the wife of her good friend, Robert Durst - mysteriously disappeared. Kathie's husband was a prime suspect but the case was never solved.

Balls: The Life of Eddie Trascher, Gentleman Gangster

Eddie Trascher was a gentleman gangster, but he never wanted to be part of the mob. For 50 years, from the pre-Castro Havana casinos to Los Angeles, Trascher stole from mob-owned casinos, scammed gangsters, and was one of the top bookies in the country. He capped his career as a confidential informant for Florida law enforcement and was the source for getting inside the Trafficante Mafia family.

Dead Biker: Inside the Violent World of the Mexican Drug Cartels

Ned "Crash" Aiken thought he had made a clean break. He had turned on his biker brothers in the Sons of Satan and entered the FBI's witness protection program, only to end up in a different kind of prison, one of mediocre work and cheap apartments. He then fell in with the Russian mob, learning their brutal code first-hand and fleeing their organization when the stakes got too high. Between the FBI, the Sons, and the Russians, there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on the innocent-looking ex-drug trafficker.

Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, the Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker

The astonishing story of Benny Binion - a rip-roaring saga of murder, money, and the making of Las Vegas. Benny Binion was many things: a cowboy, a pioneering casino owner, a gangster, a killer, and founder of the hugely successful World Series of Poker. Blood Aces tells the story of Binion's crucial role in shaping modern Las Vegas. From a Texas backwater, Binion rose to prominence on a combination of vision, determination, and brutal expediency.

Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra

Mafia Prince is the first-person account of one of the most violent eras in Mafia history - "Little" Nicky Scarfo’s reign as boss of the Philly family in the 1980s - written by Scarfo’s underboss and nephew, "Crazy" Phil Leonetti. The youngest-ever underboss at the age of 31, Leonetti was at the crux of the violent downfall of the traditional American Mafia in the 1980s when he infiltrated Atlantic City after gambling was legalized, and later turned state’s evidence against his own.

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right

Burns highlights the two facets of Rand's work that make her a perennial draw for those on the right: Her promotion of capitalism, and her defense of limited government. Both sprang from her early, bitter experience of life under Communism, and became among the most deeply enduring of her messages, attracting a diverse audience of college students and intellectuals, business people and Republican Party activists, libertarians and conservatives.

Blood, Money, and Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K

Blood, Money, & Power exposes the secret, high-level conspiracy in Texas that led to President John F. Kennedy’s death and the succession of Lyndon B. Johnson as president in 1963. Attorney Barr McClellan, a former member of L.B.J.’s legal team, uses hundreds of newly released documents, including insider interviews, court papers, and the Warren Commission, to illuminate the maneuvers, payoffs, and power plays that revolved around the assassination of Kennedy and to expose L.B.J.’s involvement in the murder plot.

Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster

Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Jonathan Eig blows the lid off the Al Capone story. Based on never-before-seen government documents and newly discovered letters written by Al Capone himself, Get Capone presents America's greatest gangster as you’ve never seen him before.

The Mafia at War: The Shocking True Story of America's Wartime Pact with Organized Crime

The Mafia at War reconstructs the relationships between the Mafia and Allied intelligence organizations.

Discover how Jewish gangsters clashed with Nazis on the streets of New York; how Mafiosi nearly issued contracts to kill top Nazis, including Hitler; how Mafia-backed bandits conducted a guerrilla war for Sicilian independence; and how Eisenhower was happy to arm the Mafia during the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Daughter of the King: Growing Up in Gangland

In this tell-all memoir, the only daughter of the man who was considered the "brains of the Mob" opens the door on her glamorous - and tragic - life. Sandi Lansky Lombardo, daughter of Mob boss Meyer Lansky, was raised in New York City in upper-class Jewish splendor and spent her childhood in the undeniable glitz of Havana and Las Vegas in Lansky's heyday in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. She dined out with her father and his associates when she was six and was introduced to Frank Sinatra when she was 11.

Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia

Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life.

Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain's Royal Family in the Darkest Days of WWII

In Princes at War, Deborah Cadbury reveals evidence that the duke and duchess of Windsor colluded with Hitler to take back the British throne from Edward's younger brother, King George VI, should Germany prevail in the War.

Publisher's Summary

The model for The Great Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim and Nathan Detroit from Guys and Dolls, Arnold Rothstein was an underworld genius, racketeer, rumrunner, and mastermind who, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, played "with the faith of 15 million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe." Jazz Age Broadway, with its thugs, speakeasies, showgirls, political movers and shakers, and sports heroes comes to life in this vibrant biography of the man who reigned supreme when the fast buck ruled and violence stalked the streets of Gotham.

What the Critics Say

"Writing a biography of the notoriously secretive Arnold Rothstein, a rum-and-drug-running, bookmaking loan shark who became one of the richest men in the world, is a gamble that, for the most part, pays off for Pietrusza." (Publishers Weekly)

Comprehensive period account for those interested in early 20th century American history. Narration was more than adequate but for some mispronunciation of Yiddish names, terms and idioms. The narrative timeline was sometimes disjointed (major disadvantage in audiobook). Held my interest throughout.

I can't say enough about Grover. By far my favorite narrator, hands down. The book itself was excellent as well, with lots of facts, but great story as well. The chapters on the 1919 scandal were riveting, and the human story was well told. 5 stars from me.

Arnold Rothstein was a pioneer of 20th century organized crime. He took the street-level and gambling-house tricks to new heights of craft and organization. He brought a spiritedness and an element of sly humor to his business. His proteges include Meyer Lansky, Benjamin Siegel, and Lucky Luciano, launching the multi-ethnic criminal organization that loomed so large later in the century. Arnold was a white glove kind of guy who almost never got his own fingernails dirty; he was great at using straw men and having numerous fall guys between him and trouble. He brought an extreme discretion and skills of quiet manipulation of every player in sight, along with fastidious risk management, that would become a standard way of life in modern America's political economy. He should stand as an icon for every slick well-dressed manicured slimeball out there. As such, he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. Grover Gardner's narration has just the right sophisticated twang for this. The story drags a bit at a few points, but it moves plenty well, and was well worth my time.

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